Beachgoers have been placed on alert after a massive great white shark was spotted near Bondi Beach.
Dorsal shark reports issued a notice on Tuesday after the three-metre long predator was seen at Mackenzies Bay, just south of Bondi, at 11.19am.
It remains unclear whether anyone was in the water at the time.
The sighting comes just months after a swimmer was mauled to death at nearby Little Bay.
British expat Simon Nellist, 35, was attacked by a three-metre great white at Buchan Point on February 16 while training for a charity ocean swimming event.
Fishermen witnessed the attack and alerted authorities, sparking a search of the area. His body was found in the water an hour later.
The Department of Primary Industries (DPI) subsequently installed 15 SMART drumlines along the coast from Little Bay Beach to Bondi to detect sharks.
Locals say there have been increased shark sightings since they were introduced.
‘Ever since they put the baited drum lines in the shark sightings gone crazy,’ one woman wrote online in response to the alert.
‘Maybe [it’s] the 50 odd dead fish hanging off chains along the beaches.
‘They come in for the smell of a feed and then pass by as the food is attached to big chunks of metals (hooks) and chain.’
Another resident said Mackenzies Bay was a notorious shark hotspot.
‘It’s very sharky round there,’ he said.
Mr Nellist’s death – the first shark fatality in Sydney in 60 years – came just months before he was due to marry his fiancée Jessie Ho, after their wedding was postponed due to the Covid pandemic.
He frequently swam between Little Bay Beach and Malabar and was aware of the dangers.
He was a conservationist and protested the use of shark net and drum lines due to the harm they cause to marine life.
Prior to Mr Nellist’s death, the last fatality occurred in 1963 when Australian actress Marcia Hathaway, 32, was mauled by while on a boating trip at Sugarloaf Bay in Middle Harbour.
She was attacked by a bull shark in just 30 inches of water just six metres from shore and died from her injuries as her friends and fiancé tried to rush her to hospital.